The Wolves

by Alex Berenson

  “Of course not.”

  “Then she can stay. The children, too.” Shalom turned away. Just before he stepped into his limousine, he looked back. “Two days, Aaron. Don’t make the Shin Bet come again. They won’t be so polite.”

  —

  AYALON DIDN’T RIDE with him back to Tel Aviv. Duberman had the Ford to himself. The highway rolled by as he considered his next move. If Israel was closed to him, Europe was out, too, and of course the United States. Isolating himself on his island would only make him an easier target. A mysterious early-morning explosion has destroyed the mansion belonging to casino billionaire Aaron Duberman on his private island of Gamma Key. Duberman is missing and presumed dead in the explosion . . .

  Presumed dead. What about faking his death, taking off with a few million dollars? Duberman doubted he could stay hidden for long, even with plastic surgery to disguise his features. He was too well known, and facial reconstruction wasn’t effective for people in their sixties. Like the people inside them, faces turned grooved and worn, their features difficult to change. Even if the surgery succeeded, where could he go? Besides English and Hebrew, he spoke a little Spanish, nothing else. Would he move to a village in the Peruvian jungle and act the part of an overaged hippie interested in the local shamans?

  No matter where he went, he’d have no contact with Orli or his children. The CIA and NSA would watch them forever. He’d have no friends, no possibility of making any. He’d have no way of spending his millions without attracting attention that he couldn’t survive. He’d be in an open-air prison of his own design, waiting for the day when a hit team knocked on his door.

  He had to have a better choice.

  China. The country that had saved his parents from certain death. They had escaped the Holocaust by fleeing from Vienna to Shanghai after Hitler’s troops crossed the Austrian border in 1938. Almost eighty years later, maybe China could do the same for him. He had a mansion on Hong Kong Island, near the top of Victoria Peak. The President had told Israel the truth, but he wouldn’t want to show the same weakness to the Chinese. If the United States decided to come after him in Hong Kong, it would do so on its own, without Chinese help. Of course, the President still might try, but the risks were even bigger than they’d be in Tel Aviv. Hong Kong was as densely populated as any city in the world, and the Chinese wouldn’t look kindly on an attack that killed their citizens.

  Plus Duberman had a good excuse to live in Hong Kong for a while. His casinos in Macao, forty miles west of Hong Kong across the Pearl River Delta, were the heart of his company. He would add even more security guards to convince the President that killing him wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Maybe in a few months, tempers would cool. Maybe he could secretly offer to donate his fortune to the President’s favorite charity, buy himself penance.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe. Duberman knew the odds were long. But he knew, too, that he had no choice. For the first time, he understood in his bones why gamblers stayed at his tables long after they should have left. Why they reached for the last credit card in their wallets, the one they had promised themselves never to touch, the one for the groceries. Whatever the odds, they were in too deep to leave. Once you’d lost everything, why not hope for a miracle?

  —

  AS HE WALKED through the mansion toward his bedroom, he found himself hoping Orli would be asleep. Or even out. Anything to avoid having to explain what had happened tonight.

  Duberman had been a legendary playboy. He’d long since lost track of how many women he’d bedded. A thousand, at least. As he’d neared sixty, he realized he wanted to leave something besides casinos and stained sheets behind. He wanted children, and to him children meant a wife. Orli wanted kids, too, and she’d figured out rock stars might not be her best bet. She was cynical enough to understand the deal they were making, smart enough to stick to it, to know that he wouldn’t tolerate her stepping out.

  Despite the age difference, they got along. Like him, she was fundamentally unpretentious, street-smart rather than bookish, and a hard worker, even if her work consisted of two-hour Pilates regimens. They even had a solid sex life. Duberman couldn’t perform like a twenty-something anymore, but he was still in shape, and what he lacked in vigor he made up in experience. With the help of a drug called Clomid—beloved of steroid cheats and fertility doctors—Orli was soon pregnant with twins.

  The pride Duberman felt surprised him slightly. Orli’s offer to take a DNA test didn’t. He’d made her sign a prenuptial agreement. If they divorced, she would receive tens of millions of dollars. But they both knew that money was a fraction of his wealth. She wanted him to have no question about his paternity, so that he would leave everything to her and their children without hesitation. He agreed to the test. Why not? He didn’t think she was bluffing, but he saw no reason to take the chance. Sure enough, the children were his.

  Orli was a better mother than Duberman had expected. She threw herself into the dirty details of being a parent, changing diapers and mashing food. He was embarrassed he’d ever questioned her motives for having them. In a way, he envied her. He loved the twins, but on a minute-by-minute basis he wasn’t much interested in their pooping or their squirming or the mushy noises that they made.

  He stepped into their bedroom and found her awake and in bed, typing on her laptop. She flipped it shut, stared at him. Even furious, she was distractingly beautiful. Every part of her fit together perfectly, and she had the natural grace of a gymnast.

  “The head of Shin Bet?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “The truth is, better if I don’t.”

  “Then I leave. The boys with me.” She slid from the bed, picked black yoga pants up off the floor. “You think I need your protection, Aaron? I’m beautiful, I must be stupid. Did I ever tell you how I lost my virginity?”

  He knew her secrets. Even some she thought belonged only to her. Not this one. “I assumed it was to me.”

  No one was smiling at his jokes tonight.

  “I was fifteen, I went to Paris, my first big round of shows, Dior picked me to walk. A big deal, Dior. My agent, Nicholas was his name, he said he needed to stop at his office before he dropped me at my hotel. We get there at six-thirty, you know, France, nobody works past five, the place is empty. He takes me into his office, says, ‘Let’s have glass of wine to celebrate. Your first big score.’ I said, ‘No’; he said, ‘One glass.’”

  “Wasn’t Natalia with you?” Her mother.

  “At the hotel. Anyway, he gives me the wine, and it tastes a little funny, but I don’t know anything about wine. I drink it. Five minutes later, I don’t feel so well. Five minutes after that, the room is spinning, I pass out. When I wake up, I’m on the floor of his office, and he’s inside me. Blood all over the floor, and it hurts. No one tells you that, how much it hurts. I screamed. I begged him to stop. He told me I’d get used to it, next time I’d like it better—”

  She rubbed her hand across her mouth, closed her eyes, fifteen again and back in Paris.

  “Finally, he’s done. A virgin, he says. Didn’t think those existed anymore. I tell him he’d better kill me, I’m telling my mother when I get back to the hotel, I’m calling the police. He says go ahead. He holds up my wineglass, says I was drinking, no one will believe me, everyone knows models are little whores. Anyway, if I do, I’ll never get another job, not in Paris or anywhere.”

  “So you didn’t tell your mother?”

  Orli laughed, small and bitter. “I did. The very minute I came to our room.”

  Duberman sat beside her. She edged away.

  “She told me I’d get over it. You know, good money, and there was something else, too. Mothers and daughters, I don’t think men can understand, my mother was pretty enough, but forty-seven, her looks were fading, and I was—”

  “This.”

 
; “She told me I would remember for the rest of my life, the way men really are. That being beautiful makes you a target. She said I shouldn’t think anyone would believe me. Understand, I was still bleeding, bruises on my legs.”

  “I’m sorry, Orli.” The only words he had, however inadequate.

  “She asked me, was I sure I hadn’t invited him. We were in a little hotel on the Left Bank, the sixth floor. Our room had a balcony, and I walked outside and looked down and the pavement called to me. But then I decided, no, I won’t give them the pleasure, not my mother, none of them. You think I don’t know the world?” She reached over, took his hand, squeezed once. “You’d better tell me.”

  He didn’t answer. She let go of him, pulled on her shoes, went to the bedroom door, long, sure strides. “I’ll take the boys to Sam’s.” Her younger sister, whose given name was Shasa, but whom Orli always called Sam. “Don’t fight me for custody. I’ll take the prenup.”

  “Orli—”

  “Then let me judge.”

  He should have stayed silent and let her go. Kept her away, kept her safe. But he couldn’t face losing her, much less the boys. So he told her. Not everything, but enough.

  “You tried to fool the United States into invading Iran,” she said, when he was done. She sat beside him on the bed, touched his neck gently, a nurse calming a feverish patient.

  “It must seem—” Another sentence he couldn’t finish. “I promise it’s true.”

  “But the CIA found out the truth.”

  “Not exactly.” He understood her confusion. “This man Wells who used to work for them, and two others. One a senator named Duto.”

  “The ones who came to the mansion?”

  “Right.” In the desperate days before the President’s deadline, Wells and Duto had come directly to Tel Aviv to confront Duberman. “The third one still works at the agency—Ellis Shafer is his name. They figured it out together and went to the President.”

  “Here I thought I had the best story of the night. And the President doesn’t tell the truth because he thinks it’ll make him look guilty, too. Because of all the money you gave to his reelection.”

  “Exactly. People will believe he knew what I was doing. Even though he didn’t.”

  “So why did Mr. Shin Bet come?”

  “The President won’t say anything in public, but he told the Prime Minister the truth, what really happened. He asked the Israelis to make me leave—”

  “Why?”

  “Probably because they think I’ll be an easier target outside Israel. And Shalom agreed. You and the boys can stay. I have forty-eight hours to get out.”

  “You can’t change his mind?”

  “He practically threatened to pull the trigger himself.”

  “Where will you go? Somewhere in Africa they don’t have electricity, they don’t know you. Tibet, a monk. After all your women.” She laughed, with a mocking edge.

  “Hong Kong.”

  “You think the Chinese love your casinos so much they’ll protect you?”

  “The President will be too embarrassed to tell them. Maybe I can wait it out. Best case, he doesn’t do anything for the rest of his term, he’s too busy hoping not to be impeached. When he’s done, the next guy doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “What about this man Wells?”

  A good question. “I don’t know. He might come after me, too, or he might decide it’s enough, he stopped the invasion, let the President deal with me.”

  She tilted his face toward hers. He didn’t think she’d ever looked at him so carefully before.

  “One last look before you leave?”

  “You know why I chose you, Aaron?” She smiled. Her teeth were not quite perfect, with a tiny space between the top two in front. Somehow models were allowed to have gapped teeth, the only imperfection the arbiters of beauty permitted.

  His face must have betrayed his surprise.

  “Don’t tell me you thought you chose me?”

  But, yes, he had. Even with the age difference. “I thought my offer was compelling.” He raised his hands to the mansion around them.

  “You weren’t my first billionaire.”

  Something else he hadn’t known.

  “I looked at you, how hard you worked, the engine never stopped—”

  “You knew I would be too busy to bother you much.”

  “I thought, this guy’s the same now as he was when he was twenty, didn’t have a penny. He just wants to win.”

  “And that was appealing?”

  “You can’t imagine how lazy rock stars are. Half the reason they wind up as junkies is that heroin is the world’s best excuse to do nothing. So you went after me, you swept me up, maybe it was a little bit cheesy, over-the-top, the million-dollar ring—”

  “Four—”

  “Like you couldn’t even imagine I’d say no. How you’ve lived your whole life. Now, finally, you went too far.” She cocked her head, looked at him critically. “Tell me again why you did this? Aside from proving that you could?”

  He pointed to the Tel Aviv skyline through their window, the apartment buildings glowing along the beach. “It all looks solid. But a nuclear bomb—” He snapped his fingers. “It’s gone. And the problem is no one believes it can happen until it does. It seems like madness. But mad things happen.”

  She twined her fingers in his. “You really think you can get out of this?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “Orli—”

  “No one thinks I had anything to do with it, right? If everyone knows I’m innocent, who’s going to touch me?”

  “The longer you stay, the more my guilt becomes yours.”

  “But not right away.”

  “No. The Americans will assume you don’t know. And even if they start to suspect you, they would probably warn you first.”

  “Then I’m not going to worry about that. Promise me, from now on we’re partners.”

  “Yes. Partners.”

  —

  FORTY-SIX HOURS LATER, they were on Duberman’s personal Boeing 787 Dreamliner, bound for Hong Kong. The mansion on Victoria Peak was fully furnished. Even so, they were carrying dozens of trunks of clothes and jewelry, along with their personal chef and Orli’s trainer. The travails of the super-rich.

  As they flew, Duberman wondered whether the United States would pluck them out of the sky, force them to land in an American ally like Tajikistan, and from there bring him back to American soil for trial. But the hours and the countries passed and then they were in Chinese airspace and he knew they were safe. Their arrival at the VIP terminal in Hong Kong was a strange anticlimax. They cleared immigration without a hitch, convoyed up to the mansion on the Peak, and unpacked. In other words, told the people who worked for them to unpack.

  The days turned into weeks. They settled into a routine of sorts. Orli worked. She even left Hong Kong sometimes for photo shoots. Duberman encouraged her. He didn’t want her to feel she was stuck. And his absence from the public eye would be less notable if she went out.

  Meanwhile, Duberman spent most of his time in the mansion. He left only to visit his casinos in Macao, a fifteen-minute helicopter ride. He always flew at night and made sure he was never the only passenger by asking big Hong Kong gamblers to ride with him. They viewed the chance to ride with him as an honor. No doubt they would have felt differently if they’d known he was using them as human shields, insurance against the risk that the United States would blow his helicopter out of the sky above the South China Sea.

  He watched CNN International and the BBC religiously, wondering when his role in the plot would leak. But the White House seemed concerned mostly with damage control. In interviews, the President and his advisors blamed the CIA, saying it had misinterpreted Iran’
s intentions. A month after his failed deadline, the President fired Scott Hebley, the DCI that he himself had put in place. On the cable news shows, talking heads joked that the President might not have pulled off an invasion of Iran, but he had sure ravaged Langley.

  Congressional leaders demanded the President and his aides fully explain what had happened. The White House refused, on the grounds of national security and executive privilege. Some members of Congress threatened to impeach him, but the idea didn’t gain traction. After all, the United States hadn’t gone to war. Polls showed most Americans believed the President had been bluffing all along, hoping an invasion threat would force Iran to end its nuclear program. They were upset the move had failed. But a majority of them also thought that second-guessing it would weaken the United States. As far as Duberman could tell, the political stalemate worked to his advantage.

  Duberman received more good news with the return of his top bodyguard, Gideon Etra. During his confrontation with Duberman in Tel Aviv, Wells had cut Gideon’s left Achilles tendon, literally hobbling him. Surgeons in Israel had stitched the fibers in the heel back together, and Gideon had spent months in rehabilitation. He was almost healed, though he still couldn’t run. Duberman trusted Gideon more than anyone else in the world, even more than Orli. A decade before, Duberman had spent millions of dollars on an experimental bone-marrow treatment that saved the life of Gideon’s son Tal. Kill for you, Gideon had told him, when the oncologists pronounced Tal free of leukemia. Or die for you.

  —

  DUBERMAN STARTED to let himself believe the President might leave him alone. He asked Geoffrey Crandall, his local lawyer, to look into whether he and his family could become permanent residents of Hong Kong. A yes came back quickly. The territory had strict immigration laws, but it was as eager for billionaires as everywhere else. Once again, Duberman had cheated the odds. Yet along with Duberman’s elation came fresh anger.

  At John Wells.

  Wells had ruined his plans. If Wells hadn’t gotten involved, the United States would already have attacked Iran. Instead, the country was a bigger threat than ever. Tehran knew the United States would never invade. It could build a bomb at its leisure. Sooner or later, the world would have to let it join the nuclear club.